{"id":114381,"date":"2022-06-25T18:15:56","date_gmt":"2022-06-25T22:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/?p=114381"},"modified":"2022-06-29T00:44:24","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T04:44:24","slug":"creature-feature-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/creature-feature-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Creature Feature #2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Creature Feature #2<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eating popcorn in front<\/p>\n

of a black-and-white television,<\/p>\n

my fingers drenched in<\/p>\n

melted butter and iodized salt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Bride of Dracula<\/p>\n

has made her fatal mistake,<\/p>\n

while Frankenstein\u2019s monster<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

only wants acceptance<\/p>\n

from a crowd intent<\/p>\n

on his eradication.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Next week, the Mummy<\/p>\n

will lumber across my screen,<\/p>\n

mindless as a drugged cow,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and I can stay up as late as I want,<\/p>\n

at least until the test pattern<\/p>\n

emerges. I watch everything,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the late-late news, the grand finale:<\/p>\n

a rendition of the Lord\u2019s Prayer<\/p>\n

in sign language. Turning off<\/p>\n

the television feels like saying goodbye<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

to an old friend I\u2019m not sure<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll ever see again–or if I do,<\/p>\n

one of us may have changed<\/p>\n

into a creature no one can recognize.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am already different:<\/p>\n

my bathroom mirror shows a face<\/p>\n

that has lived through<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

multiple bouts of terror,<\/p>\n

and I haven\u2019t even begun.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Creature Feature #2   Eating popcorn in front of a black-and-white television, my fingers drenched in melted butter and iodized salt.   The Bride of Dracula has made her fatal mistake, while Frankenstein\u2019s monster   only wants acceptance from a crowd intent on his eradication….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4286,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[5325,3825,5323,5324],"class_list":["post-114381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-dracula","tag-frankenstein","tag-monster","tag-mummy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4286"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114381"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124206,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114381\/revisions\/124206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}